Avert The Worse!

It is mindboggling to understand how a country as blessed as Cameroon would shiver each time importers raise concerns on their businesses, like now with the alleged anticipated scarcity owing to increase in import duties and other challenges. A country with huge agro-pastoral potentials but paradoxically importing much of what its citizens consume cannot be tranquil when the import channels are threatened as is the case. Disturbing situation indeed! Even the seemingly glimmer of hope coming from some importers that the global situation would not affect them and that they would continue to import, may sound good; but for how long, at what cost and who pays the price? What is certain is that even if the importers continue to import, as they say, at the present state of hikes in import duties, someone somewhere would need to pay the price. Would it be the State? In what form? Subsidies? Or the business people would be allowed to use whatever mechanism to supply the market at their cost? If the latter scenario is allowed to prevail, then the customers would be the ones to pay the price given that business people would certainly factor in the additional cost incurred to the product for the final consumer to pay. Difficult to imagine how customers with already weak purchasing powers can stand the challenge. Can inflation be avoided? Food for thought! As government hopefully works out a solution to the dizzy situation, at least for the short term; there is urgent need to come to the understanding that depending on the outside world on issues as indispensable as feeding can never ensure stability; at least all the times. The Head of State’s wish that Cameroonians should produce what they consume and consume what they produce is taking too much time to come to fruition. The fertile soils are there and Cameroon boasts of one of the best climates in the world where rainfall and sunshine swap. The country’s youthful population would have been an added agro-pastoral boosting factor. There is absolute need therefore to break away from the bitter past that haunts the present generation. Visibly, policies to journey out of incessant imports of items, some of which the country has huge potentials to produce aplenty are not in short supply. They are wide and varied but proper implementation is what has kept the country at a near beggarly situation. Eno...